What games do you feel were undone by releasing at the wrong time, whether they came too early and the world wasn't quite ready for them yet, or they came too late and released into a world that had passed them by, or they were overshadowed by another bigger game or some other event, etc?

[Shoutout to Cait Sith over on Fami for the thread idea]

Sin and Punishment Star Successor. 2010 on Wii was not going to get any attention in the West. Granted, it would always be niche, but we now live in a time when people accept more genres, and Switch does so well. I think that if you release that game in 2019 on Switch, it would do a fair bit better. 

Titanfall 2. It was sandwiched between Battlefield and CoD Infinite Warfare. It was sent to die. Had it been released a few months earlier or later? Might have done a little better.

Omega Boost. This is one of the best-looking games on PS1. It was released in a crowded year. If they had made it as a launch PS2 game instead, they might have gotten a sequel and more recognition.

Star Citizen looked groundbreaking when announced and if it ever does actually hit 1.0 it probably still will be technically impressive but the space it fills isn't as empty as it used to be and I'd say most people are over it by now.

I can think of two games off the top of my head yet mentioned.

First is Rayman Legends, released around the time of GTA 5. As is very clear with games around GTA 6, this is a bad idea. And it was all because of initial panic over the original Wii U focused release. Probably would have been better in hindsight to wait....

The second is not entirely on timing, but I feel like if Wind Waker debuted at a different time than it did, not the early 2000s, it would have avoided a lot of what it got at the time. It has been long vindicated, but that vindication took time.

No Man's Sky pretty much satisfies the itch for space sims. It's getting better and better all the time, too. 

Sega seemed to have absolutely wretched timing with a lot of their late 2000s-2010s games.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines. One of the arguably all time great RPGs releasing within the same month as World of Warcraft, Killzone, Halo 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, Ratchet & Clank: Up Your Arsenal, Jak 3, and just for good measure….the SAME day as Half-Life 2!!!

Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy, which released less than a year after the much maligned Marvel's Avengers and as a result wasn't even given a chance by most. Despite being a great game it had poor sales which led into the studio being sold by Square Enix and well, a sequel's never happening

Ah, I got one. Star Wars 1313 was looking great before fucking Disney shut down all LucasArts projects. A year earlier and we might have had a banger.

Beat me to it.  Of course, for EA, it was the perfect time.  They intentionally did it to diminish Respawn's value for a buyout.